A Christmas Story
by YaoiIsLove
Summary: At a Christmas Eve party, five year old Murata Ken gets bored and does a little story telling.


Title: A Christmas Story

Rating: K+

Pairings: mentioned Daikenja/Shinou

Summary: At a Christmas Eve party, five year old Murata Ken gets bored and does a little story telling.

Disclaimer: Don't own Kyou Kara Maou or any of these characters.

A Christmas Story

Christmas Eve at the Murata home was not an event to be missed. The neighbors, friends, and family waited in anticipation for the party that Murata Noru always made a smash hint. She knew how to make her guests smile and fill welcomed in her large home. She made sure her husband and young son knew how to greet guests as well.

"Ken-chan, come play with us!" a voice called to the figure playing in a corner. "You can't be happy all by yourself, na?" A laugh from the other room where the adults were having their celebration made the children look up.

"They sound like they are having fun," Ken commented, standing up and fixing his santa coat his mother had made him wear.

"I want to have fun too," a young girl in pigtails pouted. "I'm 12 years old, I'm to old to be in here with the kids," she complained.

"Maa ne, Ririn-chan," Ken smiled at his older cousin. "How about I tell everyone a story?"

The five other children who had been running around previously seemed to like the idea of story time and ran over to the younger boy. "You better tell something good."

"Something with action."

"Adventure."

"Romance," a seven year old neighbor girl called, prompting all the boys to go 'ew'.

"I have the perfect story, I had it in a dream last night," Ken smiled.

"What's going on in here," one of the adults asked, entering the room to check on the children. Ken recognized her as Narita-san from two houses down.

"Murata-kun is going to tell a story," her daughter told her.

"A story?" the woman chuckled. "How cute. Mind if I listen in?"

Ken shook his head in the negative. "Where to start..?"

"You have to start with 'once upon a time'," one of the young girls called.

"Ah. Once upon time there was a young girl born in a small port town called Caloria, her name was Maria Gilbit. She was a playful girl, always chasing horses, and eager to swim in the ocean. Her mother had a hard time keeping tabs on the girl as she was always running about the border of Caloria. She liked to flirt between the lines of her own country and the path that led to Dai Shimaron. As if to say, come and get me if you can. It was common for Shou Shimaron, the nation she lived in, to take men from their small harbor town for war. However, this was not the case for Maria's father. Her father was taken by Shou Shimaron's counterpart, Dai Shimaron. Not for war but to be executed as a mazoku, a demon."

The boys eyes lit up, each cheering at the word demon. They would definitely get action if demons were involved.

"Humans hated the mazoku, feared them and their given powers. They feared them even though this was not the intention of the original King Shinou. Maria always felt a pull to the land of mazoku, to Shin Makoku. At the age of 8 she begged her mother to take her to the land of her father, the land where no one would point. Where no one would throw rocks at her for aging physically slower than the other children. A land where she could be who she was naturally born to be. Her mother agreed, tired of seeing her daughters tears. Her wounds. The hate. As she too was glared at for loving a mazoku. For wedding one and baring that mazoku a half-breed child. Together they left their home in the human country of Shou Shimaron and made their way to Shin Makoku across the ocean. They were welcomed into the world of the mazoku without a word or a glance. The mazoku hand no qualms about a half-breed child living among them or a human that wed a mazoku. Many wives and husbands of mazoku lived in the village Maria and her mother moved to. A lot of humans believed that humans that side with mazoku are as good as mazoku themselves. At the age of 16, Maria decided that she would be a mazoku not a human. She no longer wanted attachment to the human world and soon after she met a nice mazoku man and wed."

The girls cooed at the bit of romance thrown in.

"While she loved her husband dearly and was ready to give him a child, something bothered her. She had never told her mother something but every since they had arrived in Shin Makoku, Maria had constantly been visiting the temple of the original king Shinou. She visited every evening after her mother had retired. She would borrow a house from the nearby farm and ride up to the temple. She would enter without alerting any of the Miko and sneak into the room of prayer where Shinou's soul resided. There would sit and just talk. Talk to him every night as it was the only way she had to be close to him. She told him about the baby and how her and her husband wished to conceive. He smiled down on her then, making her heart flutter. Shinou blessed her, telling her how wonderful it was that she would soon conceive a child. A proud child. But this bothered Maria. 'The promise,' she fretted. Shinou once again gave her a smile and told her the time was not yet right, she was not the one to set him free. 'Janus worked so hard to set you free even though he was human,' she protested. 'I feel, as your sage, I should do the same.' He chuckled committing how it was the curse of their connected souls, no matter how long or how far apart they would always find each other. His sage would always return. He commented that she was one of the truly lucky ones, they all did not get to meet him let alone speak with him. Like Janus, never once did he meet or speak with his most precious person, he only had a portrait to keep his life going. A goal to be with Shinou once again."

The children and now adults hinged on the five year old's every word.

"Her husband noticed her absence and requested to know where she went. She always smiled and answered that she went to pray to Shinou-heika. Her mother was becoming old and her human years were almost out. Unlike herself and her husband, Maria's mother would not stay alive for hundred of years, she would die soon and Maria used that as her excuse to visit Shinou. He requested to pray with her but she laughed it off saying men were not allowed in the shrine, only women. She continued to visit the temple every night and soon the words she spoke to Shinou were much different. 'I love you,' she whispered. He sighed and told her they always would fall in love with him, it was fate. The original had been in love with him and he with him, and now it was the curse of them all to inevitably fall in love with him. Janus was the prime example of this devotion, this love. But Janus had locked away certain memories, maybe he had found a way to save Shinou from the it, from Shoshu. Maybe they could be together like they were meant to be. He told her, once again, it was not her that would save him. He would know when the time was right and the keys had yet to reappear. Maria's marriage soon began to crumble, like Janus she began to pour herself over research. Trying to fight against Shoshu to free her true love, even when she had become pregnant her heart was in finding away to free Shinou. Her husband had become exasperated with her after many years of this nonsense, over 80 years he listened to her tell lies about her motives and finally she blurted it out. 'I'm the daikenja, I have to save him. I promised I would over 2000 years ago.' Her husband was taken aback by this. The great sage that had sealed the sovereign Shoshu along side Shinou-heika was his wife? 'My heart, my head, are pulling me to him. I have to,' she pleaded. Her mother's death was expected as were her children's births but unlike Janus she was not human, she would not die without finding away to save him. Her children grew and left and her husband stayed merely out of obligation. Soon even her mazoku life was up and she had yet to find a way to help him, to save Shinou. 'I told you it was not yet time,' he sighed, almost mockingly as was his nature. 'and now you have wasted your life.' She died there in the temple of her one true love, the man she was attached to through fate and her soul was his once again until it was time to try again."

"What happened to the soul after Maria," one of the neighbor's asked, mouth open, eyes widened.

"It was re-born again on Earth to a man name Jonathan Horris. Jonathan never made it to Shin Makoku and decided to fight his destiny. After that the soul returned to it's rightful world where it was reborn in the human lands a couple of times, before finding a mazoku host named Christine."

"And after that?" a girl asked.

"It found me," he smiled. "And one day I'll go home to Shin Makoku and I'll fight evil just like my past lives," he said in a teasing manner, being truthful. Ken looked up surprised to see all the adults staring at him, his own parent's looked on the verge of being livid with him.

"And this original life, who was he?" Tanaka-san from next door asked.

"He was Shinou's right hand man, his daikenja. He was everything to Shinou. His powers were a compliment to Shinou's. He was a stagiest. He was Shinou's lover."

"Two guys? Eww…." the little kids giggled.

"Ken, you seem tired, you should get to bed," his mother called.

"But okaa-san, I'm not…"

"Bed, Ken," she ordered, pointing up the stairs. The soukoku sighed before getting up from his spot on the floor.

"Don't laugh at me."

"No one is laughing at you," Ririn pointed out.

He ignored her, crossing his arms with a pout. "You're the one that causes me trouble, so you can wipe the smirk off your face. Yes, I know my mom told me to go to bed, and I'm going."

"KEN!"

"I'm going okaa-san. YOU don't follow me, I don't need you watching me sleep. Because it's creepy, and now you are making them look at me strange. Stop talking to me then and I won't talk back. It's impossible to ignore you, Shinou-heika," he glared at the air behind him. When his mother yelled again, he sighed and walked upstairs still muttering to the air. The children giggled before turning back to each other playing their games.

"He's a very creative boy."

"Creative isn't the word for it," Murata said, looking to where his son has disappeared. "Everyday it's a new story, all around this same Shinou person."

"It's quite healthy for a boy to have an imaginary friend."

"This goes beyond that," Noru said. "There is something wrong with that boy."

"You should try this doctor in America, Dr. Rodriguez, he comes highly recommended in the field of child psychology. He might be able to help Ken," Noru's sister suggested, writing the information down. "He comes to Japan twice a year, you should see him next time he's here."

Noru looked at the information giving a small thanks. "We may just do that."

-o-o-o-

"Murata Ken," the dreadlocked man called out, looking at his clipboard. Ken hopped down from the chair and entered the office. "I'm Dr. Rodriguez, it's nice to meet you again."

"Again?"

"So how about you tell me about these dreams of yours and I hear you have an imaginary friend."

"Shinou isn't imaginary, unfortunately."

"Shinou…? You talk to him?"

"All the time," Ken nodded.

"Tell me more," Rodriguez asked, sitting on the edge of his seat. Ken happily told this man everything he knew, all his dreams. For once, someone didn't laugh or call him crazy when he spoke of his past lives. For once someone listened.

-owari-


End file.
